If ASICMiner hadn't fallen apart before the BE300 got past engineering samples they'd have been the best thing on the market for several months. Demonstrated efficiency was better than the S5, with bottom clock almost on par with the S7 which rolled out nine months later. Those chips are the reason I started building miners.
ASICMiner's problems were managerial shortcomings, not technical. Bitmain's problems are managerial overreach and greed. Different problems, different people.
I didn't know to what extent, but contrary to the post above yours, i did not think friedcat was incompetent like they suggest
anyway @phillipma
I didn't know where to ask, since i thought it should be public anyway, but can you start a thread on speculating what you expect the halvening to do? People i know in the industry are confident. "we've been here before and it went well". I only started following Bitcoin like this recently, I'd love some thoughts from you and others that have ridden out the past halvenings versus what you think will happen this time similarly/dissimilarly.